The Dead Can Wait (45 page)

Halford thought of his men, snoozing on the ground around the tank, or curled up around the engine and gearbox. ‘I have to write to my parents. Not that I can say much except platitudes.
Am in X about
to go into battle at Y. Don’t worry about me. Spirits good. Love to all . .
.’ Cross didn’t say anything. Every man wrote the same kind of letter. Very few told the truth and those that did rarely escaped the censor. ‘But I’ll try and get forty winks.’

The gas curtain of the dugout was thrown back. A thuggish face thrust inside. The cap told them it was a military policeman. ‘You seen Claude Levass? Frenchman? Attached to Heavy Branch?’

‘Not for a day or so,’ said Halford. ‘Why?’

The policeman grunted and disappeared, to be replaced by a second face. Halford recognized it as belonging to Major Hoffman, also of the Heavy Branch Support Team. ‘Halford. How are you?’

‘Well, sir.’

‘Don’t let me interrupt your planning. What fuel are you using in your car?’

‘Fuel? I got some from the Engineers.’

‘Don’t put that French muck in. Just got word that it’s contaminated.’

‘With what?’

‘Rainwater.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Halford. As if they didn’t have enough problems.

‘There’ll be fresh supplies arriving within thirty minutes. Someone, somewhere has kicked someone else up the backside to get replacement petrol. All tins will have “G” for “Good” written on the side. Anything else, you ditch. Understood? That bloody fool Levass has brought up thousands of gallons that will cause the Daimlers to misfire.’

‘Sir.’ No wonder they were looking for poor Levass. He was responsible for saddling them with poor-quality fuel. Men had been shot for far less. But how was he to know the dumps had leaked? Surely he had acted in good faith?

When Hoffman had gone, Cross began to fold the map. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘refuelling. There goes your kip. Twenty winks at best.’

It was a cold, dank dawn that broke over England. At least it felt that way for a doctor in his sixties, sitting in an operations hut at a Royal Naval Air Service base in Kent. The ops hut was a converted cricket pavilion, still festooned with pictures of the teams and plaques that recorded in gilded lettering the captains and chairmen of the club since its founding in 1837.

Watson was the only person in the room. He had been left with a heater and a cup of strong tea by the wing commander, who told him someone would be along shortly for his ‘hop’. It made it sound innocuous, but the ‘hop’ meant a flight over the Channel. Watson was heading for France.

Things had moved swiftly in London once they had arrived at noon the previous day, with Churchill understanding at once that Levass had to be stopped before he did any more damage. However, although he had sent urgent telegrams, he insisted that one of them fly over to present the evidence and make sure Levass did not talk his way out of trouble. Holmes was too unwell and still back in Essex being cared for; Mrs Gregson would be battling against presumptions about her gender. Watson, tired though he was, was the obvious choice. He was allowed a few hours of recuperative sleep at his club then driven down to an airfield in Kent for the cross-Channel flight. Alone.
Back to being just half of the solution
.

The door opened and, accompanied by a blast of cool air, in came a long-limbed young man in a flying helmet. He sported an extravagant ginger moustache, of which, judging from the way it was teased to its maximum length, he was inordinately proud. ‘Major Watson?’

Watson stood and held out his hand.

‘Captain Adam Goodman. Just getting the old girl wheeled out and we’ll be ready to go.’ He frowned as he examined Watson. ‘Best get you some gloves and a warmer coat too. Gets pretty chilly up there. Flown before, sir?’

Watson shook his head.

‘Well, there’s nothing to it. Not for you. Just leave all the hard work to me.’

‘You’ve done this often? Over the Channel?’

Goodman looked serious. ‘Major, it was made clear to me that you were important enough not to be entrusted to a novice. You have some important work, I believe?’

‘Indeed.’
To find and stop a madman,
he thought to himself.

‘Trust me, they selected me because this is my back yard. Yes, I’ve done it dozens of times without mishap. We’ll be using a Sopwith One-and-a-Half Strutter, which has an endurance of close to four hours, so we won’t have to refuel.’

‘Don’t you have one with the full complement of two struts?’ asked Watson.

Goodman laughed. ‘It just describes the long and short struts configuration on the fuselage supporting the top wing. Good crate. Ours is converted to a trainer – so a twin-seater. It’s fast and it’s safe. We’ll get up to a hundred miles an hour if the wind is with us.’

Watson shuddered internally at the thought of such recklessness. From outside he heard a whine and a mechanical stutter, followed by the low grumble of an aero engine catching.

‘There,’ said Goodman with a grin. ‘The fitters are just warming her up and giving her a once-over. I’ll get you that kit.’ He turned to go and then hesitated. ‘Any questions, sir?’

‘Yes,’ said Watson, licking dry lips. ‘Is there a lavatory I can use?’

The thump of the tank’s engine starting up cracked through the night sky, reverberating among the stumps of trees and across the wasteland beyond.
Heaven alone knows what it must sound like to the Germans over there,
Halford thought. He imagined the defenders peering with periscopes into the pre-dawn murk, wondering what fresh horror the morning had in store.

He looked back down the track that snaked through what was left of the woods. It was clogged with two rifle companies, stamping and shuffling in the chill air. The dark shapes reminded him of a herd of cattle, their breath and the smoke from a last furtive gasper rising like the steam off the animals’ backs. He instantly regretted the analogy, the image leading him to thoughts of the abattoir and what was to come in the next half-hour. The smell, of the massed living and the putrefying dead, also reminded him of the slaughterhouse. You get used to it, they had said. That’s what worries me, he had replied. But now, he found, the choking fumes inside the tanks didn’t seem quite so bad.

‘Water, sir?’ It was one of the infantry corporals who had been distributing both water and tots of rum through the ranks. ‘Or something stronger?’

Halford smiled and took the water. ‘Gets damned hot in there.’

‘I’ll bet. Just wanted to say, glad to have you with us, sir.’

‘Good to have something to hide behind for a change?’

The corporal’s teeth showed surprisingly white in the darkness as he smiled. ‘Yes, and to have something Fritz don’t have. It’s a good feeling.’

‘We’ll do our best.’

‘Ready for loading, sir,’ shouted his gearsman from the open doorway, his voice all but swallowed by reverberating metal.

‘Thank you, Phibbs. Right,
G for Glory.
All aboard. Calling at all stations to Flers.’ He tried to keep the tremor from his voice, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded. Still, he received a polite chuckle from those around him. The tankmen stirred into action, relieved, no doubt, that the waiting was over.

‘Good luck, sir.’ It was Cross, the infantry lieutenant. ‘Corporal Tench there will be leading you to the start of the crossing.’ He pointed at a pale-faced young man who was attaching a lamp to the back of his belt. He switched it on and it glowed red. Halford gave him the thumbs up and took a gulp of water.

‘See you in Flers,’ he said to Cross.

Cross grinned with everything but his eyes. ‘I hear you can do a good brew-up on that thing’s engine.’

‘I’ll have one waiting. Sugar?’

‘Two please, sir.’

They shook hands, an awkward and brief moment, and checked their watches. Cross pulled out his Webley revolver. ‘We’ll be right behind you.’

‘Best place,’ said Halford, low enough that Tench wouldn’t hear.

He stepped through the narrow doorway into the familiar stew of heat, sweat and fumes. From now on, normal conversation would be impossible. He wriggled into the commander’s position and nodded to his driver, the perpetually glum but highly talented Sergeant Yates. Both men pulled on their leather helmets and lowered the new-issue goggles with dangling chainmail visors. The idea was to stop the burns from ‘bullet splash’, the sparks and hot metal that flew around the inside of the tank when it came under fire. Now the crew all looked liked a cross between medieval knights and strange, leather-carapaced insects.

Hatches would have to be shut, but Halford wanted to wait until the last moment to seal himself into this steel world. The viewing prisms were worse than useless, and it was often like driving blind. It was worth risking a bullet through the skull to be sure they were heading in the right direction. He put his face close to the open visor of the tank, hoping for fresh morning air, but, as usual, it was a breeze polluted by effluent and decay that drifted in. Tench was on the road ahead, with the white tapes – much of which had been trampled into the mud – on either side of him. Five thirty. Time to go.

One last drink of water. A final prayer. A wipe of the palms. A valedictory mental message to his loved ones. Little acts, repeated in one form or another a million times along the line.

Halford picked up the spanner from the side of his seat and banged four times. Shut all doors, it said. Then he gave two rat-a-tats with the tool. There was a clash of gear teeth, a curse loud enough to be heard over the engine, more oaths, then an answering clang of the spanner and the driver let in the clutch.
G for Glory
gave a reluctant judder and then, with a mighty creaking and squeaking, the first tank began its long slow roll to war.

The old woman lay at the bottom of the stairs, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle. A terrible domestic accident. Those old slippers on her feet had become tangled with her robe. She had plummeted head first, no doubt screaming as she went. But there were no neighbours near this little cottage on the outskirts of Great Wakering to hear her dying cries. Poor Mary Wallace. Just a few months short of her seventieth birthday. Candles would be lit in church.

It had taken Ilse Brandt, as she now thought of herself once again, some considerable time to arrange the tragic scene quite so artfully, and now her damaged arm was throbbing with pain. After a search through the kitchen she had found a bottle of meat and malt wine, which she had drained. Now she sat, waiting for first light, when she would make her move.

Twenty-four hours had passed since the crossing of the Broomway. They would have found the abandoned lorry very quickly, and would have seen the blood stains from that bitch’s lucky shot. Brandt had stolen a bicycle, but not pedalled too far, barging in on the old woman with a tale of having fallen off her bike into a ditch. It was the best way of explaining her ragged appearance, the blood down her arm and the bruise on her face.

The woman had patched up her arm and as she cleaned the wound, it was obvious to Brandt that her suspicions were aroused. No fall from a bicycle would make such a gouge in the flesh. She had insisted on fetching the local doctor. That was when it became necessary to snap her neck.

She had hidden the bicycle and laid low, not stirring. She had heard army boots on the road outside and various vehicles racing by, but she suspected they had assumed she had fled the immediate vicinity on the bicycle, which she had dragged into the kitchen. There had been a knock at the door at midday, but she kept completely still and out of sight. She moved around only after dark, feeding on cold cuts from the larder.

If only the signalling rendezvous with the submarine had worked out. How different things would have been. Still, it was no use having regrets. She would never get anything done.

She knew that soon she would have to go through the woman’s wardrobe and find something that might be the kind of clothes a Miss Deane or a Miss Pillbody would wear. Something that didn’t smell of mothballs or old age. She would use rouge or powder to hide the bruise from the stone that had struck her. Then she would head, not to London, but back north once more. She would report to Silber, the postal censor, in person. She knew the secret of Elveden now. Landships. It sounded fantastical. But that was why she had had to get off the island. It was surprising how many people would discuss the indiscretion that had them incarcerated. She had had thought Sherlock Holmes’s vision of the landships the ravings of an old man, but when Watson arrived he, too, had talked of them. And so had that damned redhead.

Her arm throbbed once more at the mere thought of Mrs Gregson. If only she’d shot her and then stripped her clothes off. Or killed them all out on the Broomway. What, was she going soft? No, following the poles was a two-person job. She had needed the Gregson woman. Still, one day they might meet again, and then she would put everything right. But first, she had to share what she had learned. It might be a day or two before she could deliver it to Silber. But the news of the existence of these armoured ‘landships’ would reach Germany soon enough after that. After all these weeks, what was the rush?

FORTY-NINE

The going was painfully laboured. The route to Chop Alley was slow, the road clogged with men and machines moving to their own assembly points, and the guide tapes had been laid running next to the communication trenches, just inviting
G for Glory
to slither in sideways. To make matters worse, it had started to rain and the road was slippery, even for the tracks. Negotiating a corner took four of the crew working in absolute unison with steering, gears and differentials. It was a slow creep rather than a smooth turn, and felt as cumbersome as it must have looked. Halford knew the four-miles-an-hour calculation was now wildly optimistic. He doubted they were running at more than two. Perhaps it would improve as they moved onto no man’s land.

He followed the red light of Tench towards the front, aware of the thin line of grey that suggested dawn – and the opening barrage – wasn’t far off. In some places he could see the road was blocked by the curious, some openly laughing at the great steel monster that was rolling their way. Tench was gesticulating wildly for them to get out of its path.